The Philadelphia Church

And He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Matt 4:19)"

The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath’s selection is judgment will come.

 

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Weekly Readings

For the Sabbath of July 24, 2010

The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them.

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Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,

“That you may be justified in your words,

and prevail when you are judged.”


But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just. (Romans 3:1–8)

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In his treatise to the Romans, Paul does not regard his epistles—any of his writings—equal to the oracles of God … he says that the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God; yet readers find that these oracles were lost when, in the 18th year of King Josiah, Hilkiah the high priest found the Book of the Law when repairing the house of the Lord. The oracles of God had been lost for long enough that “the king commanded all the people, ‘Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.’ For no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, or during all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah” (2 Kings 23:21–22).

In the matter of keeping the oracles of God, having lost these oracles in the debris of the temple for an extended period, the Jews were not faithful. Even today in the matter of keeping the calendar, the Jews are not faithful, for rabbinical Judaism starts the year in the autumn whereas the Lord told Moses the month of the Passover “‘shall be the first month of the year for you’” (Ex 12:2) … does it make a difference whether the calendar begins in the spring or in the fall? Yes, especially in years like this year, 2010 of the Common Era. By rabbinical Judaism not adding an extra month [Adar II or Veadar] to the year ending in the spring of 2010 but rather adding the extra month in the year beginning in the autumn of 2010, no Passover was kept as it is written in the Book of the Covenant or kept as Christ Jesus kept the Passover. Rather, a “strange” [alien] Passover was kept that was not of God—a Passover based in unbelief.

If the Jews exercised their responsibility to keep the oracles by losing the Book of the Covenant in the debris of the temple, and if the Sabbatarian Church of God is “okay” with the Jews losing Moses in the neglected temple, then the death of the Christian Church through the loss of the spirit shouldn’t prove troubling to these saints: Sabbatarians should understand that since Christians are the temple of God (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16), what is seen today is a situation analogous to what Jeremiah faced when he was called as a youth to be a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:5). … Jeremiah was the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests, and Jeremiah’s call came in the 13th year [after 12 years] of Josiah’s reign. It was in the 18th year of Josiah’s reign [five years after Jeremiah’s call] that Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “‘I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.’ And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it” (2 Kings 22:8). At this time, Jeremiah was still too young to serve as a priest even though he was ordained by the Lord to be a prophet. A prophet is not necessarily a priest.

As a nation, outwardly circumcised Israel heard the Law read to the people by the priests. The Law was to enter the people through the hearing of their ears—for ancient Israel, it was through the ears that the Law was to enter the minds and the hearts of the people. But if the Book of the Law were lost, the people could not receive the Law through the hearing of their ears. The priests had failed their primary responsibility, that of reading the Law to the people:

And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law. … And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people stood. … They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. (Neh 8:1–3, 5, 8)

When the priests neglected the public reading of the Law, the people of Israel went after other gods that were no gods—or was it that after the people went after other gods, the priests ceased rebuking the people through the public reading of the law? Whichever way it was, the people had not kept the Passover as commanded by the Lord since the days of the judges. Nor has the Church of God kept the Passover after the example Jesus left with His disciples since the death of the Apostle John at the end of the 1st-Century CE.

Ezra was the son of Seraiah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah, the chief priest, and “Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach His statutes and rules in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). But Ezra’s peers and the generation that came after him added to the Law as the first Adam added to the words of Elohim [singular in usage] (compare Gen 2:16–17 with Gen 3:3 — God said nothing about touching the tree). And through their additions to the Law, the leaders of Israel caused the nation to sin: by placing emphasis on the cleansing of the flesh, the leaders of Israel caused the nation to neglect the weightier matters of the Law, such as love, mercy, and justice.

Paul’s claim is unambiguous: the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. But post-exile Jews were as unfaithful in preserving these oracles as their ancestors were when pre-exile Jews had lost the Book of the Law; for an unauthorized addition to the Law actually does more harm to the people of God than neglect of the Law. Witness the ease with which the serpent trapped first Eve then Adam in unbelief. Witness the ease—concerning the Passover—with which the old serpent Satan the devil has trapped the Church of God in unbelief: by using Judaism’s calendar, the few Christians who desired to take the Passover did not do so this year. Those Christians who took the sacraments of Bread and Wine on the dark portion of the 14th of Nisan according to the Jews’ calendar took the sacraments a month too early. Like the Pharisees before them, their intentions were more noble than they were: in their unbelief they committed blasphemy against the Father and the Son for by the year of Jesus’ death, Jesus established the missing basic of the calendar, the “sign” for when to begin the year.

Thus, Israel during the years when the nation did not keep the Passover as commanded by the Lord forms the shadow and type [the left hand enantiomer] of the Christian Church that today does not keep the Passover as Jesus commanded. Even the Sabbatarian Churches of God that desire to keep the Passover did not, in 2010, keep the Passover as commanded by the Lord. With very few exceptions, Sabbatarians kept the Passover according to the Jews’ calendar, meaning that they kept the Passover a month too early.

If Sabbatarian Christians hold that observance of the Sabbath has significance before God, that observing Sunday as a Christian substitute for Sabbath observance is unacceptable, these same Sabbatarian Christians must logically hold that it is equally unacceptable to observe the Passover according to the reckoning of the Jews [rabbinical Judaism] when the Jews begin the year in the autumn [northern hemisphere]. To reject Sunday as the Sabbath [and every Christian should reject Sunday] but to accept Judaism’s calendar when this calendar begins the month of Nisan before the vernal equinox is crass hypocrisy—and then to use Paul’s words (“the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God”) to support this hypocrisy is to mock Christ Jesus’ death at Calvary.

Paul’s simple statement that the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God doesn’t mean that they kept these oracles or that they still keep these oracles: being entrusted with a responsibility doesn’t mean that the one entrusted was faithful in fulfilling that responsibility; for Paul goes on to write, “What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?”

God is faithful to deliver to His servants His oracles that can be heard through the groaning of the spirit … before the spirit was given, all of humankind had only the breath Elohim [singular in usage] breathed into the nostrils of the man of mud (Gen 2:7). The flesh was made alive by this singular breath through the dark fire of cellular oxidation of simple carbohydrates, but the sign of Jonah reveals that when a second breath of life is received—the breath of the Father [pneuma Theon]—the inner person or inner self receives life as Jonah received life when in the whale: the man Jesus had life as the Logos [o logos — from John 1:1] before He entered His creation (John 1:3) as His only Son (John 3:16). This is the glory [life] He asked to have returned to Him (John 17:5) just before He was taken to be sacrificed.

In one textual tradition, Jude shortcuts the birth process that has the Logos [o logos] who was God [theos] and who was with [pros>] the God [ton Theon] in the beginning entering His creation as the man Jesus (John 1:14) by writing, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus [Iesous], who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe” (v. 5). Another tradition holds that theos saved this people. A compromise tradition has the Lord [Kurios] doing the saving. But in every tradition, the deity that delivered Israel out from slavery destroyed this same people because of the nation’s unbelief. Likewise, the One who gave the spirit to Jesus’ first disciples killed the Body of Christ because of its unbelief—and killed the Body by not giving the spirit to another generation of disciples after the earthly temple was destroyed as a shadow and type of the destruction of the spiritual temple.

To the saints at Corinth, Paul writes, “Do you not know that you [plural] are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Cor 3:16–17) … when Paul writes, if anyone destroys God’s temple, Paul implies that it can be destroyed, but at the cost of the person’s (or angel’s) destruction. Elsewhere Paul writes about super-apostles:

I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things. … And what I do I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (2 Cor 11:2–6, 12–15)

Those super-apostles of old—equivalent to today’s mega-church evangelists—who preached a different gospel than the one Paul preached were/are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguised as servants of righteousness. They were then the ones who destroyed God’s temple—and how can these false teachers today be quickly and easily exposed? When on trial before Festus, “Paul argued in his defense, ‘Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I committed any offense’” (Acts 25:8) … if Paul had taught Christian converts to transgress the commandments, he certainly would have committed offenses against the Law and against the temple. If Paul had taught converts to ignore the Sabbath, he would have committed an offense against the Law. So mega-Church pastors who use Paul’s epistles to support neglect of the commandments keep the dead Body of Christ “dead.” They are the lawless [anomians — from Matt 7:23] that, according to Peter (2 Pet 3:16–17), twist Paul’s epistles into instruments of their own destruction.

Does the unfaithfulness of today’s mega-church evangelists nullify the faithfulness of God? Not in the least. Rather, the unrighteousness of leading Christian theologians serves to show the faithfulness of God, who through Jesus in His sermon on the mount, commanded disciples, “‘Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few’” (Matt 7:13–14).

Christians who follow the teachings of mega-church pastors and the teachings of the hirelings of mega-denominations are many, for these Christian theologians preach an easy grace, a heaven awaits you just as you are gospel, a message that contains an element of truth but is not the truth. Before a disciple’s heart is circumcised, the disciple must cleanse his heart through a journey of faith from spiritual Babylon to heavenly Judea: the disciple must quit living as a son of disobedience and begin living as a spiritual Judean.

The Christian who continues, after baptism, to live as a son of disobedience, willfully transgressing the commandments, especially the Sabbath commandment, remains a son of disobedience and is not under grace but has come, through baptism, under the law. This Christian’s guilt remains for he or she claims to see and understand the mysteries of God (see John 9:41 for an example text).

Every person is humanly born as a son of disobedience (Eph 2:3); i.e., born either as a slave to the Adversary as Israelites in Egypt were slaves to Pharaoh, or born as a son of the Adversary as Egyptians were “sons” of Pharaoh. A person is not humanly born as a Christian; as a son of God. Spiritual birth comes after human birth, and usually after the person has reached his or her majority. Infant baptism is of no value to the infant; nor is the baptism of children of any value to them. Neither has the infant’s heart been cleansed nor the spirit given to the infant.

The spiritual maturation of a son of God follows the type and pattern of human maturation: an infant son of God will not be a human infant but will be an adult human being that has been born from above, or born again, or born through receipt of the divine breath of God [pneuma Theon]. … Human parents do not expect a human child to put away childish things and behaviors and instantly act like an adult. Nor does the Father expect an infant son of God [a human adult] to put away childish things of God—

The Sabbatarian convert who cannot wait to spread “the truth” to friends and family behaves as a spiritual infant, which isn’t a bad thing and which is very understandable behavior. This first love and its accompanying zeal are admirable, but they also display a lack of wisdom; for disciples are to give ready answers when asked about the hope that lies within them. They need to learn to withhold what they know until they are asked. And no one is to hinder these infant sons of God from coming to Christ, but hinder is exactly what mega-church pastors and the hirelings of mega-churches do. Therefore, the Father doesn’t draw human children from this world, but transforms adult human beings into His children [sons], adults who should be old enough not to be hindered in coming to Him by those Christian teachers who would enchain the infant son of God in continued disobedience.

The first Adam didn’t receive “life” as a human infant; nor did the last Adam receive the divine breath of the Father [pneuma Theon] as a human child. Rather, in both cases (first and last), Adam was an adult male with Scripture stating that Jesus was about thirty years old. … Zwingli’s arguments against Believers’ Baptism come from his failure to understand spiritual birth in the terms of human birth coming to the first Adam as an adult corpse: the inner self or inner person is as spiritually dead as the clay corpse of Adam was dead [i.e., without life] until the Father gives to the person a second breath of life. And as Adam was created as an adult male with a child-like nature, sons of God are adult human beings with a child-like spiritual nature.

The second Sinai covenant—the heavenly or permanent Sinai covenant—is made with Moses and with Israel: “And the Lord [YHWH] said to Moses, ‘Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel’” (Ex 34:27 emphasis added). Two covenantees: Moses AND Israel. And this is important, for Moses never lived as a slave to Pharaoh but lived as a son—but as a fugitive son after age forty. Moses had to flee Egypt to live. And so it is with self-identified Christians: most Christians are enslaved by sin and death through the Adversary as ancient Israelites were physical slaves to Pharaoh. But a few (very few actually) Christians have fled sin and have mentally trekked from Babylon to Judea, crossing the spiritual Jordan when they began keeping the weekly Sabbath and arriving in heavenly Jerusalem when they began keeping the High Sabbaths of God. These few Christians are as Moses was: they no longer have the good things of this world, and they will be asked to return to their brethren in spiritual Babylon to lead a reluctant nation to salvation.

The above statement has great significance: a man doesn’t marry his body, nor does Christ Jesus marry His Body which is already one with Him. Yet Jesus will marry glorified disciples when He comes again, meaning that a separation must occur between the Head and the Body when the Son of Man is revealed (Luke 17:30). This separation will see those disciples who are foreknown and predestined by the Father returning to “Sin” not to participate in sin [unbelief] but to lead the Christian Church away from Sin as Moses led ancient Israel through the Wilderness of Sin. Therefore, those few Christians who are today spiritually alive are of Moses, who left Midian and returned to Egypt to do before Pharaoh all the miracles the Lord put into his power (Ex 4:21). Those few Christians who are spiritually alive today go to greater Christendom now and in the near future when they will do the miracles that the Lord has put into their hands.

Moses’ trials in leading Israel from Egypt to Judea were spread over a third forty-year period during his life [Moses spent forty years in Egypt, then forty years in the land of Midian] whereas the trials of the two witnesses, comparable in every way to Moses’ trials, come at them quicker: what happened to Moses over forty years will happen to the two witnesses within three and a half years, with one additional trial: the two witnesses as the representatives of the Body of Christ will be sacrificed as Jesus, the Head of the Body, was sacrificed. As Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land, the two witnesses will not enter the Endurance in Jesus (i.e., the last 1260 days of the seven endtime years) as physically living human beings.

Paul writes, “But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world?” (Rom 3:5–6)

The Father doesn’t judge this world: He has given all judgment to the Son (John 5:22). But Jesus as the only Son of the Logos [o logos] didn’t come to judge the world but to save it (John 12:47). However, the Christian who hears the words of Jesus and does not keep them has a judge, “‘the word [o logos] that I [Jesus] have spoken will judge him [or her] on the last day’” (v. 48) —

Neither the Father nor the Son judges the world, or judges disciples. Rather, both the world and disciples judge themselves by whether they keep the words that Jesus spoke, with Jesus only speaking the Father’s words. The wrath of the Lamb that comes upon humankind during the Affliction (Rev 6:16–17) comes because neither Christians nor the world will keep the words of the Lord.

How much more fair can God make judgment? You, whoever you are, determine your fate by whether the work of the law is written on your heart, with the work of the law being love for God and love for brother and neighbor, especially when your neighbor is your enemy. You determine whether you will believe Jesus’ words; you determine whether you will believe that you “‘are the light of the world. [For] A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven’” (Matt 5:15–16 emphasis added).

See your good works—every Christian will have “works” that are either good or evil, with “evil” being nothing more than unbelief. Every Christian will either believe God or not believe God. The complaint the Son has against the church in Laodicea is that He knows their works: “‘You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth’” (Rev 3:15–16). To be lukewarm is to be without zeal because the saints of Laodicea are without real belief: they sort-of believe. They know the commandments, but surely God wouldn’t expect them to keep them. They know what God thinks of homosexual relationships, but surely God isn’t against love. They know what Jesus said about His kingdom not being of this world or from this world, but surely God would want them to throw out the spendthrifts in Congress that are bankrupting the United States of America, a nation formed by divine providence. To be lukewarm in a world where “hot” equates to believing God and “cold” equates to unbelief is to be where the visible Christian Church is today; that is, the pious portion of the visible Church.

There are no Christians who haven’t heard Jesus’ words concerning the Law:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5:17–20 emphasis added)

The Law to which Jesus referred is the Torah, which will be written on hearts and placed in minds when disciples come under the New Covenant (Jer 31:33; Heb 8:10) … if visible Christendom were today under the New Covenant, every Christian would Know the Lord. There would be no need for Christian ministry. All Christians would be of one Body and of one spirit, but this is not the case—and no amount of justifying fractured unbelief and the resulting schisms can plaster over the long-held animosity between Arians and Trinitarians, let alone between Seventh Day Adventists and the Sabbatarian Church of God. There is no cast or splint that will repair Humpty Dumpty.

It would be pleasant to say that when Christians are liberated from bondage to indwelling sin and death at the Second Passover, the Christian Church, then filled with spirit, will be “one” with itself, but that will not be the case. Rather, Christian will make war with Christian as the hatred that now secretly dwells in the hearts of Christians is made visible by the spirit … there is a reason why the Father separates the Body of Christ from the Head when the Body is restored to life; for those Christians who are today Trinitarians will not suddenly become Binitarians but will, instead, make war against Arians, who are presently better prepared for the Tribulation than are Trinitarians.

Plans were made seventy years ago to leverage food into discipleship: individual and corporate Arians have obtained considerable control of the world’s food supply, enough control that they can now leverage the transportation, storage, and distribution of most agricultural commodities into Arian discipleship … once the seven endtime years begin, food will become more precious than gold.

The leading endtime Arian denomination will initially be less affected by the social chaos resulting from the liberation of Israel than will other denominations; for these Arians, if obedient to the teachings of their denomination, have a year’s worth of everything consumed by the family on hand at all times.

The world will judge itself through God having left His words with humankind in the form of the words of Jesus of Nazareth—

Good never comes from evil; nor does the end of a matter justify the means. Judgment comes through the means used to reach the end; for in the end, this world and all that is in it will pass away.

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The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.

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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."